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"I've got this beautiful panoramic three-dimensional painting of Mars based on Martian photos. It's 30 feet wide. You can pick out every pebble on the Martian landscape. And who'd have dreamed you could do that?"
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Pilot-Robot | ||
| The piloting gear of a space tug. |
The gritty life of a space tug owner, in the tiny pilot's cabin.
| A sturdy, utilitarian craft, the tug had no broad and dangerous ports.The low walls and bulging roof of the tiny pilothouse, lined with spongy gray plastic, were cut only with thin tubes for the instruments. Beside the dial-topped case of the pilot-robot, Captain Rob McGee pulled his square leather face out of a black periscope hood, and looked at them with mild, squinted eyes.
 (The pilot-robot from Collision Orbit>) |
| Technovelgy from Collision Orbit,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding in 1942 Additional resources -
|
See how the pilot-robot keeps the ship safe by using thermalarm relays to detect small objects in the ships path and maneuver around them.
See also automatic navigator in A Matter of Size (1934) by Harry Bates, the
chart cabinet in One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson, the
3D tank display in Triplanetary (1930) by 'Doc' Smith, the article on astrogation in Methuselah's Children (1941) by Robert Heinlein and the
telechart in Crashing Suns (1928) by Edmond Hamilton.
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Tech news articles related to Collision Orbit
Tech news articles related to works by Jack Williamson
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| Solar-Powered Space Trains On The Moon |
| JWST Finds Bucking Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 |
| First Trips To Mars Announced By Elon Musk |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
